Soil not Oil: A massage from India

About Dr. Vandana Shiva Winner of the alternative Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 (the Right Livelihood Award) and named by AsiaWeek as one of the top five most important people in Asia in 2001,Vandana Shiva is a dynamic, provocative thinker and commentator on the environment, women?s issues, and international affairs. She is the author of over three hundred papers in leading journals and numerous books, including Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge and Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply. Dr. Shiva is a founding board member of the International Forum on Globalization and the founder of Navdanya International, a science and policy research center based in India.

What others say about Dr. Shiva:?Shiva is a burst of creative energy, an intellectual power?

?The Progressive

“Shiva has devoted her life to fighting for the rights of ordinary people in India. Her fierce intellect and her disarmingly friendly, accessible manner have made her a valuable advocate for people all over the developing world.”

-Ms. Magazine, from the back cover of Shiva’s Stolen Harvest

“A leading thinker who has eloquently blended her views on the environment, agriculture, spirituality, and women’s rights into a powerful philosophy.”

-Utne Reader, from the back cover of Shiva’s Stolen Harvest

“I want Vandana Shiva to be president of the world”

-David Brower, Founder of Friends of the Earth and Earth Island Institute

In Her Own Words: ?People ask me: ?How can we protect biodiversity if we are to meet growing human needs?? My reply is that the only way to meet growing human needs is to protect biodiversity, because unless we are looking after the earthworms and the birds and the butterflies we are not going to be able to look after people either. This idea that somehow the human species can only meet its needs by wiping out all other species is a wrong assumption: it is based on not seeing how the web of life connects us all, and how much we live in interaction and in interdependence.?

?Globalized industrialized food is not cheap: it is too costly for the Earth, for the farmers, for our health. The Earth can no longer carry the burden of groundwater mining, pesticide pollution, disappearance of species and destabilization of the climate. Farmers can no longer carry the burden of debt, which is inevitable in industrial farming with its high costs of production. It is incapable of producing safe, culturally appropriate, tasty, quality food. And it is incapable of producing enough food for all because it is wasteful of land, water and energy?Industrial agriculture uses ten times more energy than it produces. It is thus ten times less efficient.?